


A bundle of cells

by rudesunyoung



Series: Watch Me, Watch Us [9]
Category: BLACKPINK (Band)
Genre: Domestic, F/F, Fluff, Romance, Slice of Life, Youtube AU, vlogger jennie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23073628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudesunyoung/pseuds/rudesunyoung
Summary: With her hiatus, Jennie can finally start reading again, organize those family photos that they keep shoving into drawers and maybe— just maybe, help Lisa teach Hyun how to read.
Relationships: Jennie Kim/Lalisa Manoban | Lisa
Series: Watch Me, Watch Us [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1099083
Comments: 22
Kudos: 76





	A bundle of cells

**Author's Note:**

> this was so much fun to write. i hope you guys like it ❤️

The problem with taking a break from YouTube is that Jennie feels like something’s missing when she doesn’t peer into the lens of the camera to say _‘hi!’_ or she isn’t spending over four hours in front of her computer editing something. 

When she isn’t talking into a mic or rearranging the lights in her studio, she has to do other things. Things like helping Lisa find a pair to one of socks or reading her instructions from the back of the box on how to make brownies at 4 a.m. because Lisa woke up with a weird craving. 

Without the camera at her side, Jennie doesn’t have to worry about what it is she has to film today or how much she’s going to have to edit out because Hyun knocked the camera over or Hanna forgot to hit the record button. 

After the incident, her company gives her a month off to take a hiatus and then schedules a few telephone interviews and TV show appearances that she can handle over Skype. 

And even though Jennie doesn’t voice this out loud to anyone, it feels _good_ to relax. Her hands don’t shake when she opens up her email and finds there’s no new flight itinerary. Her heart doesn’t pick up in pace when she gets a call from her manager and she asks Jennie, what she’s been up to recently. 

Without a schedule, for the first time in a long time, Jennie actually feels okay and really, she knows that this is something she should tell Lisa— that her anxiety is starting to rear its ugly head back, but it all seems futile right now. 

Because when she wakes up at noon, the sound of cartoons playing from the living room and the smell of bacon drifting through the walls, she still feels okay. Probably better than okay, she just doesn’t have the right words to describe it. 

Sometimes she’ll stay in bed all day, laughing at jokes that her kids tell her and watching Hanna scribble in her coloring book as Hyun falls asleep on the floor. Other days, they’ll all head out to the park and Lisa will chase both of them around the playground until she tires out and collapses on the pile of wood chips and shrieks when the kids jump on her.

Days bleed into weeks and weeks bleed into a month. 

Jennie reads more. She thumbs through Sally Rooney, then she devourers Leo Tolstoy, and in between teaching Hanna how to write her name and spell random words, she reads _Pachinko_ and nearly has a nervous breakdown when she finishes it.

When it’s really late at night and Lisa is actually wide awake, they’ll look through all the cabinets and in between magazines scattered in the kitchen from where they stuffed pictures into. 

Lisa will find some randomly in the bottom of her shoes and Jennie won’t even question it— she’ll just pull out one of the many photo books that they have tucked underneath the couch and tape it inside. 

They’ll laugh at blurry photos and smile at pictures of Hanna posing or Hyun sticking a finger up his nose and then they’ll thumb through earlier ones, of when one of them was a baby and Jennie will just stare at it. 

She can remember what it felt like to have that inside of her, almost as if the sensation was just there yesterday. She can remember the acid in the back of her throat and how her gums sometimes bled and Lisa cried because she thought she had oral cancer. 

She can remember that sensation, almost as light as a nudge and then as strong as a shove when she first felt them move inside her. 

Her finger smooths over one of the photos of Hanna in a high chair, her face covered in food and some of it falling from her hair and she looks so upset that Jennie laughs for nearly five minutes straight. 

When Lisa falls asleep against her shoulder, Jennie continues to look through the photo album and without disturbing the other girl, she laughs into her hand and just reflects, living through each memory as if many of these things happened within days of each other.

* * *

****

**2 weeks later**

When Hanna turns five, they have a small party at their home with a few of her friends from daycare and Hyun, unaware of why a party is going on, sulks when he realizes that none of the presents piled on the table are for him. 

The living room is decorated with balloons. Streamers hang from the arches, and Hanna runs into the kitchen with a party hat on her head as Lisa takes the cake out to set it on the table. 

It’s decorated as Stitch and Hanna had cried the first time she saw it. It made Lisa laugh so hard that Jennie had to take a picture of it because it made her chest feel funny. 

So with little children running through the living room and Hyun trying his hardest to keep up with the older kids, Hanna pushes a chair next to the table and climbs up on her knees, staring intently at Lisa as she rips open the packet of candles with her teeth. 

“Do you know how many you’re ‘posed to put, mommy?”

Lisa snorts and arranges them carefully around Stitch’s head, Hanna’s eyebrows furrowing as she watches her. 

“Don’t worry, I know what five candles looks like.”

Hanna huffs and Jennie snaps another picture before one of the boys, whose name is something like Connor or Cameron, tugs at the end of Hanna’s dress and points to the TV. 

“Shark boy and Lava girl is on!”

She jumps out of the chair so fast that she almost falls over and Jennie yelps, reaching out to steady it as the chair wobbles. 

She can’t even scold Hanna because she’s already out of ear shot, and it’s her birthday and Lisa had told her that every kid needs to at least almost crack their skull open at some point in their life. Jennie had stared at her for about five minutes before she finally punched her on the arm and told her to fuck off. 

But this was Hanna’s day, and Jennie didn’t have the energy to argue like she normally would have. Maybe that’s why Lisa smiled all smug and hip checked her out of the way as she looked through the drawers for a lighter. 

“You need to start smoking again,” Lisa muttered after turning over another stack of unopened mail and office supplies that were jammed into the drawer. 

“Shut up,” Jennie laughed. They pulled open a few more drawers until Lisa stuck her hand on top of the refrigerator and managed to pull down a lighter. 

“So that’s where you hid them….” Jennie clicked her tongue. 

“Gotta find a new hiding place now or I might catch you climbing onto the counters.”

Jennie punched her on the arm and that only made Lisa laugh harder as she started to light the candles. The sparklers fizzled and popped as Lisa lit each one. When Jennie switched the light off, Stitch’s face glowed underneath the candles and she followed the younger girl out, her hand against the small of her back as they carefully tip-toed into the living room.

_“Happy birthday to you…”_

A few of the kids completely abandon the movie to gasp at the cake in Lisa’s hand, but Hanna is engrossed in the movie, not even looking away as Hyun catches sight of them and squeals.

“Cake!” He shouts. 

The rest of the kids climb off the couch and a little girl finally pulls Hanna away by her hand, all of the children crowding around Lisa’s legs as she bends down to show Hanna. 

“Make a wish,” Lisa grins. 

Hanna’s face is bright, her eyes wide and her fingers twitching as she bounces in place. The party hat is nearly lopsided but Jennie doesn’t think she’s ever seen her so happy before. 

“But you didn’t finish the birthday song…” Hanna frowned looking up suddenly. 

Jennie snorts and they sing it again, louder this time because all of the kids have joined in. But Hyun doesn’t get it; he’s still trying to blow out the candles, but Hanna just laughs as he tugs on her hand. 

“Blow it out, noona before it _booms_!” He jumps up, spreading his arms wide. 

“It won’t blow up!” She laughs and squeezes her eyes shut for a second before she blows her candles out. 

The kids cheer and Hyun tries to swipe at one of the candles, but Jennie picks him up and laughs when the kids start pulling at Lisa to cut the cake. 

“Wait, wait, wait! I don’t want to drop it!” 

“Mommy, don’t drop my cake!”

“I won’t!”

Later, after they’re pulling down the streamers and shoving wrapping paper in a large trash bag, Lisa will sit on the edge of the table and swipe some of the frosting off of the cake, smearing Jennie’s cheek with it.

 _“Nooo,”_ She tries to shove her off, but Lisa cackles, tugging her close by her waist and wrestles Jennie between her legs, so she can lick it off her face. 

“Gross!” Jennie shrieks. 

“Don’t act like you don’t like it,” she laughs and presses a sloppy kiss to her cheek. 

“Yuck,” Jennie gags, but she doesn’t move to wipe it off and Lisa only wiggles her eyebrows. 

“Wanna take this to the bedroom perhaps?”

There’s still wrapping paper on the floor and dishes in the sink from earlier. The kitchen is an absolute mess because Hanna and her friends wanted to make slime, but then Hyun tried to eat his, so Lisa had to find something else for him to do. 

Jennie thumbs the skin underneath her eye, feeling the bone underneath it, and then seeing the mark where she had hit herself in the face with the cabinet door. 

“Help me clean up first, then I’ll think about it.”

She wraps her arms around her neck and Lisa whines, pulling her close enough so she can press a kiss to the side of her neck. 

“You’re such a goddamn tease,” Lisa mumbles. 

Jennie barks out a laugh and shoves her back, not too hard, but enough that Lisa has to grab onto the edge of the table. 

“You trying to kill me? Just because I want to spend some time with you?” 

“I always spend time with you,” Jennie smiles, rubbing the skin at the nape of her neck. 

“It’s never enough,” Lisa whispers, dragging her nose across her cheek and feeling the stickiness of the frosting on her skin. 

Jennie dips her head, pressing a kiss to the edge of her mouth and murmuring something that Lisa can hardly hear. 

“What was that?”

“I said... _dishes_ ,” she grinned and couldn’t help but laugh when Lisa squeezed her around her waist. 

“Ugh,” she whined. “After everything I do for you.” 

“All you did was hang up the streamers.”

“That was a tough job.”

“That was your _only_ job.”

Lisa snorted, pushing Jennie away from her as she laughed and steered her towards the sink.

* * *

“What’s that word?”

“I don’t know!” Hyun shrugged. 

“How do you not know? I just told you what it says.”

“I can’t understand you,” he laughs and Lisa frowns at him, shifting the little boy on her lap as she turns the page. 

“That doesn’t make sense.”

 _“You_ don’t make sense,” he giggles and takes the book out of Lisa’s hand, slamming it shut and sliding off her lap. 

“We’re not done! I have to teach you how to read,” Lisa frowns. 

She sits up to try to take the book back from him, but Hyun holds it up in the air, out of reach. It shouldn’t be hilarious because Lisa could easily just throw him over her shoulder and snatch the book from Hyun, but it does make her laugh. 

“What’s my name?”

“Your name is mommy!” He laughs and hops in place like a rabbit. 

He’s still in his pajamas because it’s early, but they’re the only two still in the apartment and after watching Saturday morning cartoons for nearly an hour, Lisa thought that they should probably do something “educational.”

“How do you spell that, though?”

Hyun squats on the floor, picking at the carpet and furrowing his eyebrows in the same manner that Jennie does when she’s thinking really hard about something. 

Lisa waits. She even slides off the couch and crawls over to him, pulling Hyun back into her lap. 

“Um...with the...the...M letter, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right, bud. Do you know what else?”

He leans back, rocking from side to side in Lisa’s grip as he thinks it over. He opens his mouth like he wants to say something and when he tilts his head back, Lisa smiles at him. 

“Do you know?”

“Is it an O?”

“Wow!” She gasps. “It is! What’s the next letter?”

Hyun giggles, turning around in Lisa’s lap so he can face her. 

“M?”

“How do you know that?!”

“Because Hanna told me!” Hyun laughed. 

“What’s the letter after that?”

Hyun crawled out of Lisa’s lap and went over to the toy chest pushed up against the wall. He pulled out his favorite light up truck and showed it to Lisa as he ran it across the carpet. 

“Can we play now?”

“But you didn’t finish spelling the word.”

“I can finish later,” he shrugged and started making sounds as he drove it underneath the coffee table. “Let’s play, mommy!”

* * *

****

**1 month later**

Jennie knows that something’s wrong. 

Not _wrong_ , per say, but that she feels off. 

It starts off with something small. She wakes up with a headache so intense one morning that she refuses to leave the room. She actually has to beg Lisa to get her a Tylenol and even after that, the headache doesn’t go away for awhile. 

Then the following day, while Hanna’s brushing her teeth in the bathroom with Hyun, Lisa asks her if she wants to eat some bacon. 

Jennie watches her take it out of the fridge, and she watches Lisa rip open the package and set it on the skillet, listening to it pop and cook on the stove. 

It’s only when she opens her mouth to say something that the smell of the bacon finally hits her. It doesn’t do anything at first. It’s only when she inhales and she can smell the grease and she can feel how it tastes in the back of her throat. 

Jennie gags and nearly knocks over the stool in her haste to get out of the kitchen. 

“Baby, are you okay?!”

Sometimes, she’ll be lying in bed and she’ll hear the sound of the shower water running and it’ll make her want to use the bathroom. She does that a lot, more so than usual. 

And then she’ll spend the rest of the day either sitting on the floor with her head between her legs, waiting for her headache to go away or she’ll be in the kitchen chugging a liter of water in order to calm her stomach.

“Do you want to go to the hospital?” Lisa asks her. 

It’s nearly one o’clock in the morning and Lisa’s spread out across the bed. It should be annoying but Jennie’s put up with it for years and she can’t sleep if one of Lisa’s limbs aren’t touching her in some way. 

“I don’t need to go to the hospital.”

“But you’re sick.”

“I’m not sick.”

Lisa turns around, her mouth set in a straight line as she stares at Jennie. It’s too dark in the room to see her properly, but Jennie reaches out anyway and smooths the area between her eyebrows. 

“You’re _sick_ ,” she whispers again.

Jennie slides closer to her and wraps her arms around her waist. She can hear the way her heart beats through the t-shirt and she can smell her body wash that’s still on her skin. Jennie listens to her breathing and she waits for another minute before she looks up at Lisa. 

“I’ll go to the doctor tomorrow, okay?”

Lisa kisses her forehead once and then twice, before Jennie laughs and snuggles closer to her. “I just don’t want you to be hurt or anything.”

“I’m not hurt,” she mumbles. 

“Then what are you?”

“It’s probably just a cold or a bug. It’s nothing serious.”

“I just worry.”

“You don’t have to worry.” 

“Of course, I have to worry. You’re my _wife_ , remember? We’re supposed to worry about each other. It’s in the whole marriage thing.”

“Marriage thing?” Jennie laughs. “I guess that makes sense.”

“It makes a lot of sense,” Lisa shifts on the bed so her head is angled down toward Jennie. 

“You’re my everything. I never want you to be hurt or sick. It makes me so nervous…” she whispers. 

Lisa’s never told her this before, but she also doesn’t have to explicitly say it for Jennie to know that. It’s in the way that she looks at her; how Lisa laughs the loudest whenever Jennie tells her something that’s not even that funny. The way that Lisa cries whenever Jennie’s hurt. It shouldn’t still be like this between them— like they’re a couple of college kids all over again, but it does. 

When Lisa’s happy, Jennie’s happy. When Lisa’s upset, Jennie’s upset. They’re like two sides of the same coin. 

“I’m sorry…”

“You don’t have to be sorry. I just don’t like to see you like this. You make me happy and whenever you’re not...everything just feels off.”

They lay in silence for a little bit longer. Jennie traces patterns in Lisa’s side, but she waits until Lisa falls asleep— until she can hear her breathing even out before she moves away. 

Jennie walks quietly into the bathroom, switching the light on and shuts the door softly behind herself. She bends down and opens the cabinet, digging through a few boxes and pushing over a few bottles of Listerine before she finds what she’s looking for. 

Jennie rips the box open, dumping the stick on the floor before she shoves the box in the trash and lifts the toilet lid up. 

The box says to wait five minutes, so Jennie counts down from 300 seconds. Her feet feel cold against the tile and she drums her fingers against the seat until the time is finally up. When she stands back up to wash her hands, Jennie grabs the stick off the counter and turns it over to read the screen.

* * *

“Why are you staring at me?” 

Lisa flinches, her eyes wide as she helps Hanna into her shoes. They’re sitting on the floor in front of the door and after Hyun ran back to get his toy out of the room, Lisa hadn’t stopped looking at her. 

“I’m not…”

“You are.”

“You tied my shoes wrong because you were looking at mama!” Hanna frowned. 

She pushed Lisa’s fingers away and undid the knot, tying it herself in big bunny ears as she sang underneath her breath. 

“You just….” she mumbled. “I don’t know...your face...it’s like _really_ glowy. Did you use my face mask? The one with the strawberries on the cover?”

“What? No, I hate those.”

“Then—“

“Mommy, hurry up!” Hyun shouts, running into the back of Jennie’s legs. 

“Sorry!” He giggles and crawls through Jennie’s legs before standing back up and jumping over by the front door.

 _“Mommy,_ ” he whines. “We’re gonna miss it!”

“We’re going to the park, we’re literally never going to miss anything.”

Hanna starts jumping up and down too and Lisa groans, standing to her feet as Jennie watches them pull on her hands. 

“Let’s go!”

“I can’t hear myself think when you guys shout like that!”

Jennie presses her lips together to keep herself from laughing as the kids all but drag her out of the front door. She can hear their voices out in the hallway and Hyun shouting over Lisa even though it sounds like complete nonsense. 

Jennie tucks her hair behind her ear and looks down at the front of her shirt.

* * *

“You know...” Jennie says, carefully slicing carrots on the chopping board. “I was thinking of something the other day.”

Lisa puts down her cellphone and turns her attention to her, raising an eyebrow. 

“Thinking about what?”

Jennie slid the carrots into the bowl beside her and then grabbed a stick of celery, chopping it up just as finely. 

“I want a dog.”

“A dog?” 

“Yeah,” she nods and then looks over her shoulder at the other girl. “You don’t?” 

“That’s not what I’m saying, no,” she snorts. Lisa gets up from the table and crosses over to the kitchen in two large strides, turning around to lean her hip against the counter. 

“It’s just—“

“You really want one?” She asks her. 

Jennie looks up at Lisa and nods, pushing her bottom lip out in a pout and it’s so cute that Lisa laughs, grabbing her face to push her cheeks together and kiss her on the mouth.

“Why are you pouting?” Lisa grins. 

“Because…” she mumbles, lifting her shoulders to shrug. “I feel like you’re gonna say that you don’t want one.”

“It’s not that,” Lisa shakes her head, pushing her glasses back up her nose. “I guess I’m just—“ she pauses. “Thinking if we have the space for one, you know?”

Jennie opens her mouth to say something...to tell her that they’ll need a bigger place anyway, but she decides against it.

“We can get a small one,” Jennie suggests. “Like a Pomeranian...or a pug...or a Pomeranian…” she grins, adding the rest of the celery to the bowl.

She nudges Lisa out of the way with her hip and washes off the vegetables, running them underneath the water before she shuts it off and sets the bowl to the side. 

“Do you want a Pomeranian?” Lisa snorts. 

“Do _you_?”

“I hate when you answer a question with another question,” she frowns. 

Jennie smiles, leaning up on her toes to kiss Lisa once before tugging her over towards the stove. The pan is already hot, so she uncaps a bottle of oil and lightly pours some in it.

“I do if you do,” she shrugs.

Jennie can try to act indifferent as much as she wants, but Lisa knows that look. That look that she makes when she wants something, when she tries to pretend that she’s nonchalant about it and feigns ignorance. 

“I mean— I guess we don’t _have_ to worry about what the kids will think...Hanna is going to lose her fucking mind…” Lisa sighs, already imagining how excited their four-year old gets around animals.

“And Hyun wants a dog, too,” Jennie adds. She grabs the bowl of vegetables and empties it into the pan, the food sizzling as she begins spreading it around with her chopsticks.

“Hyun only wants a dog because he thinks that it’s gonna be like the ones on Paw Patrol,” she grumbles. 

Jennie coughs out a laugh and reaches over to grab a bottle of seasoning, lightly sprinkling it on before she turns the heat down. 

“They still want one, though.”

“Yeah…” Lisa says. “I mean if you really and I mean— _really_ — want to do this, then I’m cool with it.”

The smile that blossoms on Jennie’s face is so beautiful that Lisa blushes, her own face growing warm as she steps away from the stove and brings her head down to kiss the younger girl. Lisa’s fingers tingle as Jennie pulls back, her gummy smile on full display. It makes Lisa want to kiss her again and give her just about a million puppies, so she can see her smile like that everyday. 

“You make me really happy,” she chuckles.

Lisa rolls her eyes but laughs when the other girl slaps her arm. 

“You make me happy, too.”

“Now, with a dog we’ll be _happier_ ,” she snorts. 

Lisa gags, pushing away from the other girl as Jennie laughs and turns back to the stove. 

“You make the worst jokes ever. They’re not even funny.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be funny. It was meant to be cute.”

“Sure it was,” Lisa shakes her head and kisses the skin behind her ear.

“Do you need help, by the way?”

“You can grab the chicken out of the fridge, so I can put it in with the vegetables.”

“Okay.”

As Lisa helps Jennie in the kitchen, the older girl stares over at her, watching how she uses the tongs to add the chicken to the pan, and the way she almost drops the bowl when her hand slips.

 _Tell her_ , that voice whispers. 

The heat wafts up to her face, fogging her lenses, and Jennie leans over to wipe it away with her thumb. The condensation is warm against her skin and she laughs when Lisa kisses her finger.

* * *

“Can I ask you guys something?”

Hanna lifts the cup of water over her head and dunks it over herself, Hyun squealing as he kicks his legs, splashing water on Jennie. 

“Ask us what?”

Jennie lifts Hyun’s arm up, scrubbing his armpit with the washcloth as Hanna dunks her toy pony underneath the water. Jennie bites her lip and sighs, sitting back on her haunches as Hyun takes over scrubbing his other arm. 

“What do you guys think about a baby?”

“I’m the baby!” Hyun says, chasing after Hanna’s pony with his motorcycle. He makes these exaggerated noises with his mouth and then laughs when Hanna splashes water at him. 

“I know _you’re_ the baby, but what about another baby?” She pinched his cheek. 

Hanna grabs her own washcloth and scrubs her chest and then down the side of both her arms before she looks up. 

“Like a little baby?”

“Yeah, like a really little baby— smaller than Hyun.” 

Hyun gasps, dropping his motorcycle in the water and stands up stark naked in the water, the suds rolling off his little shoulders. 

“What’s smaller than me?!”

“A baby, _duh_! Mama just said that!”

“I’m the baby!”

“A smaller baby!”

“Hyun sit down,” Jennie smiles and pushes him to sit back in the water. She grabs the cup floating above the water and dunks it underneath, collecting water and pouring it over his body. 

“Are we getting a smaller baby?” Hanna asks Jennie. 

Hanna was too small to remember what it was like with Hyun. She was barely two years old and had only been fascinated with the way that Jennie’s stomach had changed— constantly growing and growing until it could barely fit underneath her shirt. 

Without saying it out loud, Jennie shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Well, I don’t care,” Hanna shrugs. She starts working the baby shampoo through her long hair and when it runs down her forehead, Hyun wipes it away. 

“You don’t?”

“No,” she shakes her head. “I just don’t want it to sleep in my room. It’ll creep me out.”

“How would that creep you out?” Jennie laughs.

 _“Because_ ,” she sighs, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “What if the baby needs to go to the bathroom? Who will take it out of the crib? What if I’m sleeping and I don’t hear—"

“Don’t worry about that. The baby would sleep with me and mommy and maybe...if it got older...Hyun could share a room with it.”

The little boy stares back at Jennie with wide eyes. 

“So I have to sleep in a crib? How will we both fit?”

“You won’t sleep in a crib, silly,” Jennie snorts. “You’re a big boy, remember?”

“Our apartment is too small!” Hanna frowns. “We have to get the baby more toys...and our toy closet can barely close. So we have to get another playroom.”

“I know….” Jennie sighs. “Do you guys want to live in a house like Jisoo-unnie or do you want to live in an apartment like this?”

Hyun turns to his sister, waiting for Hanna to answer the question. 

“Mmm….I like living in an apartment. Mommy lets us press all the buttons on the elevator when no one else is on,” she laughs. 

“I want to live in an apartment too!” Hyun nods his head. He reaches for the cup and pours water over his head again, pushing his curls out of his eyes. 

“Okay,” Jennie smiles. She leans over the edge of the tub and laughs as she flicks water at both of them. 

Hanna squeals and splashes Jennie back, kicking water up as Hyun shouts and starts flailing. 

“I’m gonna turn on the shower head!”

“No, don’t turn that on, Hyun!”

* * *

Jennie undresses in front of the mirror, letting her clothes pool at her feet as she hears the shower running. 

She stares at her body in the mirror, at the flare of her hips and the slight paunch of her stomach when she turns to the side. As she runs her hand over her stomach, she hears the water cut off and the sound of the shower curtain being pulled back. 

Jennie can hear Lisa singing as she shuts off the bedroom light and climbs on the bed. She ponders if she should put her clothes back on or not, but she decides against it when the door finally opens and warm, yellow light floods the room. Jennie tucks the blanket underneath her arms and smiles when Lisa pokes her head out, her hair wet and the toothbrush halfway in her mouth. 

She wiggles her eyebrows, then ducks back in, as Jennie hears her go about her night routine. A few minutes later, she switches the light off and pads across the room, swiping her iPhone off the desk before she comes to bed. 

“I wanna show you somethi—” Lisa chokes as she lifts the blanket up and notices her lack of clothing. 

“Shit! I was going to show you this...but change of plans, right?”

“No,” Jennie laughs, turning over into her side and pulling Lisa close. “What was it that you were going to show me?”

“I’m looking at it…” she murmurs and leans over to kiss Jennie. 

Lisa drags her hand down her side and rubs her hip, feeling the bone underneath and the goosebumps against her flesh as her fingers run over the skin. The kiss is slow and measured, almost as soft as the sheets tucked underneath the mattress. When Lisa grips her arm, Jennie turns over and licks into her mouth, tasting the toothpaste and the Listerine behind her teeth. Lisa moans quietly, pulling back slightly, so she can press kisses to the edge of her mouth, the tip of her nose, and the middle of her forehead. 

Jennie trembles and pulls her back down to kiss her softly on the mouth. “What was it that you wanted to show me?”

“What?” Lisa breathes. 

“Your phone,” she whispers and kisses her chin. “You said you were gonna show me something.”

“I don’t know what I was saying…”

 _“Lisa_ ,” Jennie whines. “Come on, I wanna know.”

Lisa kisses her twice before licking her lips and pulling away to grab her phone from the end of the bed. 

“My point still stands you know,” she mutters. “A fucking tease.”

Jennie smiles and scoots closer, tucking her chin into the space of her shoulder as she opens Safari and presses on one of the tabs she has open.

It’s a pet adoption shelter. One near downtown that Jennie remembers driving past a few times on the way to the airport. Lisa thumbs around on the site before turning the screen towards Jennie and showing her a picture of a small, brown Pomeranian. 

“It’s cute, right? A Pomeranian too, just like you wanted.”

The photo is a little blurry but the dog is cute. It’s tongue is sticking out and it kinda looks like it’s smiling, but the fur is so brown that it looks like dark chocolate. 

“I like it,” she smiles. “I really like it. The photo says that it’s a boy. Do you like him?”

“Yeah,” Lisa nods. “It’s cute and small. It could fit in the house with a little maneuvering,” she says. 

“Do you want to tell the kids?”

“Yeah, you can tell them tomorrow.”

“Okay,” she nods. “Do you think they’ll like it?”

“Mmhm.”

Lisa turns around to set her phone on the nightstand and crowds back into Jennie’s space, pushing her back against the sheet as Jennie laughs. 

“Now, where were we…”

Lisa bends down to kiss her neck and Jennie squirms, pushing at her shoulder as she keeps laughing. 

“Wait, wait, wait.”

“Wait for what?” Lisa murmurs into her skin. Her lips trail across her jaw and up the side of her face and she almost kisses her again, before Jennie grabs ahold of her face. 

In the dark, Lisa’s eyes glint slightly under the blue light from the window and as she stares back at her, Jennie quirks her lips into a small smile. 

“I want you to feel something,” she whispers.

“Feel what?” Lisa raises her eyebrow. 

Gently, Jennie takes her hand and Lisa shifts her weight so she’s leaning on her elbow to prop herself up. Jennie lays her palm against her stomach, right underneath her belly button where the skin is a tad bit firmer than the rest of her abdomen. She places her hand on top of Lisa’s and presses down until the other girl’s eyes widen. 

“Is that…” she breathes. “Jennie...Jennie...what is that?”

“You know what that is,” she smiles, licking her lips. 

Lisa’s jaw goes slack at about the same time that Jennie can see her eyes start to water. “Holy shit…” she breathes. 

“Holy shit. Holy _shit_!”

Jennie laughs, drawing her close as she feels a spark of heat travel up the length of her spine and settle in the back of her neck. Lisa leans down and kisses her, but her focus is slightly off because she only manages to get the corner of her mouth. Maybe it’s just to feel her, though. Because she whispers, _‘I love you’_ over and over again, enough times that Jennie can feel the words in the back of her throat. 

When she moves down the length of her body, she presses a kiss to her belly button and then to the side of her stomach. She doesn’t say anything, but Jennie strokes her hair and waits until she looks back up at her. 

“Come up here, please? I miss you.”

* * *

“Do you want this?” 

Lisa stops fiddling with the camera in her lap and looks up as Jennie walks into the room. She has her phone in her hand and she looks tired although she just took a nap. She tries to sit next to Lisa, but the other girl pulls her onto her lap, setting her camera aside. 

“I don’t care. I want whatever you want.”

“Even if I want it?”

“Even if you want it, yes. If you don’t, then I don’t either. I told you already that I’m happy with what we have and I’ll be happy if we have more too.”

“I know,” she murmurs. “I just— I just want us to be sure, you know?”

“I know. If you’re not then we can get it out of you today or tomorrow. It’s your body, whatever you want, you know that. It’s just— it’s just a bundle of cells, really.”

“People—people can call it what they want, but what it is really is just a few cells and shit. Like a Tyson chicken nugget...you know those dinosaur shaped ones?” 

Jennie chokes out a laugh and punches her shoulder. “What the fuck, Lisa?”

“I’m _serious_! I saw a picture on Webmd once! Looked like a chicken nugget!”

“Shut up,” Jennie sighs. “Just shut the fuck up. You’re so stupid.” 

“I’m just saying…” she mumbles. “You learn something new everyday.” 

“I didn’t learn shit.”

Lisa pinches her side and Jennie yelps, slapping her hand away as the younger girl starts laughing. 

“What do you want to do, though? Seriously, Jen?”

Jennie bites her bottom lip and watches the curtains sway before the open window. She feels the bottom of her stomach and presses her fingers into the soft give of the flesh, its firm just like it was last night. 

“I want it.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, I do.” Jennie nods. “I’m ready— I think, you know? I want this...when—when I first thought about it, I was really happy and I still feel the same way. I don’t think that will change either.” 

Lisa watches her and nods thoughtfully. It feels like a weight has been lifted off of her chest, but at the same time it doesn’t. Because _yeah_ , she’s fucking scared and she can’t _believe_ that she’s doing this again, but she’s also happy as shit. She wants this and she wants to have this baby and she ready to do this all over again: the messy diapers, the sleepless nights, all of that is okay. 

“I want to do this...I want to keep it.”

“Okay, just let me know. You have until...wait, how far along are you?”

“Four weeks.”

“So you have twenty weeks left if you want to...you know…” she trails off and makes a slicing motion at her neck.

“Lisa!” 

And when Jennie tackles her into the couch, she doesn’t think she’s ever heard Lisa laugh this loud.

* * *

Lisa zooms into Jennie’s stomach. Her shirt is pulled up slightly and she zooms out when Jennie whines and tugs the cardigan over herself.

 _“Stop it,_ ” she whines.

“But there’s like...something in there.”

She pokes at her stomach and laughs when Jennie flicks her hand. 

“I know that.”

“Do you, Jennie? Do you _really_?”

* * *

“Baby?”

Hyun crawls onto the couch and stares at Jennie’s stomach. She’s in her third month and it’s starting to show. Maybe not by much, but enough to be noticeable by someone that's staring directly at her just like Hyun is.

“Baby is in there?”

“Yeah,” Jennie chuckles. 

His hand is cold through her t-shirt, but she doesn’t say anything as he leans down and stares hard at her belly. 

“You okay little dude?”

“How does the baby poop if he’s in your stomach, mama?”

* * *

“I made this for you!”

Jennie jumps, her knee hitting the desk as she barely stops herself from crying out. Hanna runs into the room with a piece of paper in her hand and at first, Jennie can’t make out what it is until Hanna practically shoves it in her face. 

“What is it?” Jennie rubs her knee. 

“That’s us!” she says pointing to four stick figures. “I drew us at the beach and that’s the baby!” she points to a round circle on one of the stick figures with dark brown hair just like Jennie’s. 

“It’s _really_ pretty,” she smiles. “Do you want me to hang it up?”

“Yes, please! We should put it somewhere the baby can see it.”

“Okay,” she snorted. “Where at, then?”

Hanna surveys the room quickly before she gasps and points at her vanity mirror. “Right there, you do your makeup all the time in the mirror.”

She runs across the room, stretching up on her tippy toes as she shoves the drawing onto the counter. She knocks over a few bottles of foundation and her stick of concealer, but it’s totally worth it when Hanna stands back and positively beams at the drawing.

* * *

Lisa stares at Jennie, her mouth twisted into a frown as she watches her uncap the top of the mayonnaise container and scoop a spoonful into the tub of rocky road ice cream. 

“Oh shit. That’s so fucking gross, baby.”

“Shut up,” Jennie rolls her eyes and pushes the mayonnaise away as she takes the spoon and scoops some into her mouth. 

Lisa gags and covers her mouth as Jennie smiles around the spoon and winks at her. 

“Want some?”

“What the fuck?! Hell no!”

* * *

“You have like...the best ass in the universe.”

Lisa takes a picture of Jennie from behind, the film sliding out of the bottom of the camera as Lisa grabs it and blows gently on the surface. 

“Can you stop?”

“Can _you_ stop?”

“How am I gonna stop, Lisa?”

“I don’t know. Actually, I take that back. Don’t stop. Keep doing what you’re doing.”

Jennie rolls her eyes, but Lisa can see the small smile on her face as she goes back to the yoga workout video playing on the screen. Her shirt is tight across her stomach, which makes her bump even more pronounced and it’s so cute that Lisa has to take another picture of it. 

“Okay, now downward facing dog!”

“Lisa, shut the fuck up!”

* * *

“What’s that?”

Jennie smooths her finger over the laminated photo. It’s still grainy and a little bit hard for them to see, but she points to the area where the arrow is also pointed at. 

“That’s the baby,” she smiles. 

Hyun’s eyes widen in shock and he stares at the photo and then down at Jennie’s stomach and then back to the photo again. 

“It’s so small!”

“Because it’s still early,” Jennie laughs. 

“Does it hurt?” Hanna frowns. 

“No, I’m okay.”

Hanna steps closer and squints at the image. She takes a deep breath and stares at the photo for a little bit longer before she nods her head. “Okay...as long as it’s not hurting you, then I like it!”

* * *

Jennie yawns, rubbing her hands over her stomach as Lisa shifts her head in her lap. Hanna and Hyun are already sleeping on the floor. There are blankets spread all over the carpet and it seems like the ending credits have been rolling on forever and it’s starting to annoy her. 

“Baby…” she says, nudging Lisa’s shoulder. 

Lisa makes a noise in the back of her throat and shifts, her nose touching the bottom of her baby bump. 

“Can you turn the TV off, please?”

Lisa groans and presses her lips against her skin. “Can _you_?”

“I can’t reach it, dip shit. Not to mention, you’re laying on me.”

“Just close your eyes…” she murmurs. “It’ll turn off on its own soon.”

“You’re the worst,” Jennie grumbles. She tries to go back to sleep, but the fucking music is really making that hard to do and the longer she listens to it, the more irritated she gets. 

“Please, Lisa. The baby wants the music off... _please_ ,” she whines. 

Lisa shifts around, muttering underneath her breath before she groans loudly and sits up right away. “For one, that doesn’t even make sense and two, it’s too early to pull that card,” she frowns. 

Lisa gets up anyway, her shirt wrinkled and her shorts bunched up on one leg as she walks over to grab the remote off the table. When she shuts the TV off, Jennie couldn’t keep the smile off of her face even if she tried.

* * *

"I was thinking of a name..." Jennie mumbled. 

"Oh yeah?" 

Lisa's scrolling through Wal-Mart's website on her phone, looking at leashes and dog collars and Jennie had commented on a few, but had mostly left it up to her. "Mhm. Do you want to hear it?" 

She taps on one of the items before laying her phone face down and turning her attention to Jennie. "What is it?" she kisses her nose. 

Jennie runs a finger over her brow and then down the length of her nose. Her skin is still cool from the shower and Jennie uses her fingers to separate her bangs. 

"What do you think about the name Holland?"

"Holland?" Lisa raises an eyebrow. "Holland...Hanna, Hyun, and Holland..." she smiles quietly to herself and tugs Jennie close, her bump pressing up against the skin of her stomach. 

"I like it," she chuckles. "I like it a lot. It has a nice ring to it."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, it's cute. But...Holland, that's unisex, right? So...wait, do you know the sex of it?" 

Jennie smiles and tucks her face into Lisa's neck, mumbling something that the other girl can't make out. 

"Baby, do you know the sex? What the hell?! Spill, now. I hate secrets!"


End file.
